


After All

by cyborg22 (WishIWereATroubleMaker)



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: 1960s, After Mash if the writers weren't cowards, B.J. Hunnicutt Centric, B.J. Hunnicutt has PTSD, Divorced B.J. Hunnicutt, Epilogue for B.J., Gay B.J. Hunnicutt, Good Dad B.J. Hunnicutt, Justice for B.J. 2021, M/M, References to the Beatles, Tagged as T because there's a lot of talk about bullet wounds in the PTSD bit, i have no idea how to tag this, it's also true don't worry y'all the beatles exist in the mash canon, just tagging that because it's kinda funny that's a real tag, this is my excuse to write hawkeye cutting bj's hair, threatened mustache
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:13:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29304018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishIWereATroubleMaker/pseuds/cyborg22
Summary: Many aspects of BJ’s life had changed in the years following his time in Korea. Some for the better, some for the worse, and some didn't change at all.
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, Past B.J. Hunnicutt/Peg Hunnicutt
Kudos: 10





	After All

**Author's Note:**

> This is a totally self indulgent post, I literally haven't posted anything in years because I've been too caught up in academic writing. I never thought old man television would be the thing to pull me through lol. I wouldn't say there's a real plot to this thing, these ideas about BJ's life following M*A*S*H have just been floating around in my head for the past few days and I just needed to get it out of my system.

Many aspects of BJ’s life had changed in the years following his time in the war.  
-  
Some were for the better. 

After spending a majority of his time here on Earth suppressing one of the many basic human urges to abide by some arbitrary societal standard, he had decided it would be best if he and Peggy separated. Their marriage was far from loveless. In fact, he would argue that he loved Peg too much. He loved the life they built together, and most of all he loved Erin more than that life itself. They were truly living the American dream. However, BJ would argue that he loved and respected Peggy enough that he wouldn’t want her to continue living in a less than ideal marriage. Peggy deserved someone who loved her more than BJ. Someone who was willing to love in all the ways he couldn’t. It was an emotionally turbulent affair, but one that ended in what was best for them both. 

BJ now resides in a house just around the corner from Peg. A lovely two-story dwelling. Erin has her room upstairs, currently decorated to the nines with posters of whichever rock and roll boy the girls are into nowadays. (BJ butchers the name every time. Sometimes on purpose. Nothing beats the sheer embarrassment of his pre-teen daughter when he intentionally calls the man plastered on her walls, “Peter McCarthy.”) Of course, BJ also has a bedroom. There’s a nice, spacious kitchen and a backyard that he routinely pitches softballs to Erin in during summer break. A living room with a basket filled to the brim with knitted afghans despite residing in sunny California. It was the perfect place to come home to after a long day at his private practice, and BJ was also able to come home to the best people. 

As already mentioned, Erin was often there. BJ and Peggy had been taking turns since they parted ways, and in more recent years Erin came and went as she pleased. It felt like sometimes she would spend an entire month with him, and others she would go months without staying a single night. Not without phone calls or the occasional afterschool visit. She wasn’t in those cold teenage years quite yet, just the indecisive ones of early adolescence. That didn’t make the moments he did get to spend with her any less precious. While she was indecisive, Erin was nowhere near as oblivious as she was when BJ first returned from Korea. She is much more aware of the melancholy smiles as he stands over her shoulder at the dinner table to help her with her math homework and the pensive stare from the stands at her home ballgames. Half the time BJ doesn’t realize he’s brooding until she points it out later, but honestly, he doesn’t regret it. He remembers spending many a night in the swamp staring at her baby pictures, longing to be a part of her life once again. Now he has no desire but to savor every minute he has with her, making up for the time he lost while in the army. While they were less frequent than ideal, the moments he shared with Erin were ones he hoped she would look back on just as fondly. 

-  
Some were for the worse. 

Before his time in Korea, BJ had never stepped inside a therapist’s office. He never dreamed he would have to. Even now, after a handful of years speaking with the same doctor, the office still felt as claustrophobic as it had on his first visit. It was a stereotypical setup. Nice mahogany desk, crushed velvet seating, and an overly formal practitioner who makes him feel underprepared in every single interaction they carry out. It was always uncomfortable describing his time with the 4077 in too much detail. While he would gladly prattle on about the various shenanigans and the general tomfoolery he indulged in while on camp, he tried to avoid talking about the gory details with just anyone. He paid this guy to listen, and even then, he struggled to tell him about everything. 

The excruciatingly long hours in the OR, performing surgery on kids as young as sixteen. Pulling bullets out of men, repairing organs that would be performing perfectly fine if they weren’t obliterated by the impact of a shell. He remembers the times in which their camp would be under attack. Perfectly harmless doctors, being ambushed by artillery from the sky as if they were the ones delivering the orders. He tells about the dozens of men he would operate on, only to later find out they were on the enemy’s side and would be transported off to God knows where. There were nights where he would head into the shower and his skin would be stained the color of merlot despite the layers of fabric separating him and his patients. No one is prepared for that lifestyle, even those who train their whole lives to serve in the military. 

There have been nights were BJ has awoken in his bed in a cold sweat, believing that he could hear the all too familiar sound of helicopters flying overhead. The faint shouts in the distance of, “Choppers!” He can almost hear the sound of doctors and nurses alike scrambling out of their cots to tend to their new influx of patients. Each night this happens, he wakes up, springing out of bed fully prepared to scrub in only to realize moments later that he’s no longer in Korea. He’s in his bedroom, panting like a dog as he stares through the curtains towards the dimly lit streets of Mill Valley. Shaking despite the frantic sweat that had managed to cover his body like a coat. On nights like those, he’s incapable of going back to sleep. More often than not he’s left shuffling to the bathroom in the dark, taking a cold shower in the wee hours of the morning in a desperate attempt of washing away the tension. It was on nights like that he was almost grateful Erin didn’t spend every night with him. 

Therapy did help. As much as he despised the dark and dreary atmosphere that shrouded the building like a cloak, he couldn’t deny the fact that he was getting better. Fewer and fewer sleepless nights were spent meandering the halls of his home like a lost phantom in search of some way to cope with the intense amount of stress that made its home behind his eyes. He was no longer going to work drained from a long night of tossing and turning like a restless bull. On a good day, he even manages to sleep in. 

-  
Some patterns started in the war, but they didn’t really change after it was over. Honestly, BJ brought plenty back from Korea with him.

After he returned home, BJ spent many afternoons rummaging through his mail for letters from the other doctors and nurses stationed with the 4077. Oddly enough, the person he receives the most from is Father Mulcahy. He suspects he’s not alone in this, BJ couldn’t imagine the life of the everyday chaplain was a particularly riveting one. Letters slow around the Catholic holidays and the back-to-school season, but nevertheless BJ enjoys writing with him. He sends family photos, ones he’s ensured are placed above the Father’s desk along with the ones shared by the other doctors. Klinger, of course, writes as well. Letters were slow at first, as he scoured the countryside of Korea in search of his wife’s family, but once he returned to the states, they became more frequent. He now keeps BJ up to date on life in Missouri and the exploits of one Colonel Potter, who’s enjoying retirement tending to his horses, painting landscapes, loving his wife, and serving as an honorary grandfather to little Cy Young. Last, and certainly not least, Margaret frequently writes to BJ. Her life is nowhere near as different from life on the 4077 as the others. Sure, she’s now in New Jersey, but she still serves in a military hospital treating soldiers and their families as if she were still overseas. She reports that it’s nowhere near as intense as life in Korea. On average, she typically treats the flu and appendicitis more than bullet wounds. She had found her calling before she was even born, BJ has never met a person more suited for army life than the ever-compassionate Major Houlihan. 

It might seem that one person in particular is missing from that list. The one person everyone would expect BJ to write to every single night if he could, one he would incessantly call as a part of his daily routine. BJ would keep in close contact with Hawkeye, if only he hadn’t made a home with him here in San Francisco. 

There were only a few months separating the end of the war and that unexpected visit from Maine. BJ always said that he would make an effort to travel up to Crabapple Cove just to see what all the hubbub was about, perhaps meet the famed Daniel Pierce that Hawk always spoke so highly of. Perhaps they would spend the weekend, making small talk about work and Erin and life in general. With the lack of threat to their lives that spark would’ve fizzled into nothingness, and the two would carry out the rest of their lives as little more than estranged army buddies. They would share a few drinks and a couple of laughs as if they were back in Korea, but BJ would ultimately return home to the lonesome monotony of everyday life. He believed this wholeheartedly. The only thing that shook this envisioned reality to its core was the night that he heard a loud knock at his front door. He can still remember how it went. It was a weeknight; it was Peggy’s week to keep Erin, so BJ was left to work on any leftover paperwork that trailed back with him from the office. He was sitting on the couch, document skewed across the coffee table as he mindlessly shuffled through them one by one. Routine, nothing out of the ordinary. It was roughly somewhere between five-thirty and six, breaching on the inappropriate time for someone to stop by unannounced but not quite there yet. When the knock came, BJ almost automatically assumed it was Peg. That’s usually who came over now adays, and though it was rare it wasn’t unheard of for something unexpected to crop up within her personal or professional life, leaving him with Erin for a random night within the week. So, that’s who he was expecting when he got up from his couch crease. Who he was expecting when he tossed down whatever paper he was working on onto the coffee table. Who he was expecting when he approached the door, turned the knob, and ultimately met an all too familiar face behind the screen. All he can remember is that Hawkeye… Well, all he could remember was that Hawkeye was there. He was in front of him, on his doorstep, in civilian garb with those familiar soft eyes crinkling into a nervous smile before BJ practically tackled him in a hug. 

Hawkeye was different after the war, yet he was the exact same as BJ remembered him being. The two of them could never seem to become bored of each other, BJ always assumed that’s why Hawkeye caved and came to California in the first place. Indeed, that spark was still there, and it only seemed to grow brighter once they were in the states. It was odd, but there was something about seeing the man he had grown so fond of in a domestic setting that just tugged at BJ’s heartstrings. They had been through hell and back together, and more than anything BJ believed that Hawkeye deserved to rest. They should be happy, and it wasn’t unrealistic to believe that was attainable. He never formally asked him to, but Hawkeye moved to San Francisco and in with BJ at the beginning of ‘54. It was as quick of a process as moving someone across the country could be. Granted, Hawkeye didn’t have any large furniture to worry about. It was mostly clothes and a few personal items, as much as they could get back in one trip. From that moment on, Hawkeye and BJ had begun to build a life together. Outside of a war, and outside of Korea. 

-  
It’s been roughly ten years since they made that decision. BJ is still with his private practice, splinting broken arms and prescribing cough syrups. Hawkeye had actually moved on from practicing medicine, instead taking on the role of a professor of surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. Rumor has it he has some of the best stories on campus, though no one can really tell which ones are real and which he made up on the spot. It seems that med-students are incapable of believing that a miniature soothsayer and a man who dressed in women’s regalia somehow managed to reside on the same military camp. Despite casually mocking his past in the army throughout the day, he and BJ rarely discussed their time in Korea at home. When they did it always managed to create too solemn of a tone for their household, even when they reminisced on the more positive times. It almost always ended with the two staring at their mantle, looking at both the older and newer photos taken of their ever-expansive family. Some spanned as far back as before BJ had even joined the 4077 to as recent as last Thanksgiving. Photos of their respective biological families were in there as well, along with a copy of Erin’s most recent yearbook photo, but in general there were plenty of memories kept atop of that fireplace. Both the good and the bad. 

There were parts of BJ’s life that he could divide into clean-cut periods of time, defined by both significant and minuscule moments. When he was in med-school, when he was married to Peg, his time in Korea, his time after Korea. Despite his efforts to categorize aspects of his life, there are some things that remained consistent. Though they may seem minute in the grand scheme of things, BJ cherished them in an oddly nostalgic way. For example, there is only one person BJ trusts to cut his hair. Every time he’s tried to go to a barber shop, something was off. It always ends up too short on the sides, or too long on the top, or too flat at the back. Whatever the case may be, his hair never looked how he wanted it to when a professional took their clippers to it. However, wielded by the untrained hands of one Benjamin Franklin Pierce, a pair of old crafting scissors serviced just fine. At least once a month, when BJ’s hair starts to curl around his ears and pool at the nape of his neck, he sits down at their kitchen table with a bath towel draped around his shoulders like a shawl as Hawkeye snips away at his hair with about as much skill as the haircutting greats. He only knows how to cut one style in particular, but that just so happens to be BJ’s. 

So, on nights like this, the two of them sit and perform their little ritual. Music whirs from the record player in the living room as Hawkeye worked his magic. He intently watched his hands as he worked on BJ’s hair, trimming up the longer sections until they were no longer uncomfortably long. Occasionally, BJ could hear him lowly hum along to the jazz as he cut. Eventually he would plug their old clippers into the same outlet they use for the toaster for Sunday morning breakfasts before using the shortest taper to clean up around his ears and the back of his neck. The rhythmic buzzing mingled with the sound of the stereo, and Hawkeye would work his way around to stand in front of BJ. With one hand, Hawk would hold onto BJ’s face as he continued to wield the clippers with the other. His eyes carried such intensity as he began evening out the sideburns. He knew BJ was fully capable of handling this part on his own, but that didn’t stop him from doing it every single time. Maybe it was the perfectionist in him, or maybe he just enjoyed jerking BJ’s head around. 

Whatever the case may be, Hawk would almost always offer to “finish the job,” haphazardly motioning towards his upper lip with the now free hand. He was almost always met with the same response. Hawkeye would have to deal with the fact he wasn’t the only thing he wanted to keep around after Korea. If he was feeling particularly annoyed by the mustache, claiming he doesn’t want to have a “carpet burn” because BJ decided to “grow a third eyebrow,” they’d reach a compromise. Taking his aforementioned sewing scissors, Hawkeye would stand in front of BJ with that same firm hold on his jaw. That familiar intense look would return to his eyes as he began to trim away, clipping away at the undercoat of BJ’s mustache until his upper lip was once again visible. Once he let go of his chin, Hawkeye let his hand brush away the stray hairs from around BJ’s mouth before giving his cheek a gentle pat. It seemed that every time their eyes would meet for a moment, and Hawkeye would give him the shortest lingering kiss known to man. Their lips would touch for a second, but he would trail away as slowly as he physically could, leaving BJ leaning in after him like a fish seeking water. Without a second thought of indulging BJ in a slightly longer one, Hawkeye would give his shoulder a firm pat as he stood up from his squat casually and began cleaning up their setup. Ignoring the fact that BJ was left in the mesmerized state as he continued to prattle on about dinner plans. It was routine for BJ to feel just as enamored by Hawkeye every single time. Maybe that’s why he thinks the haircut turns out so well, perhaps it’s simply classical conditioning. 

There were plenty of big changes that took place within BJ’s life following his time in Korea, many of which weren’t ideal. Despite that, BJ was not only adjusting but thriving after the war. He was able to not only make himself happy here in the United States, but he was also able to bring back what few joys he had found overseas.


End file.
